


Angels Can't Be Called Jake

by Saral_Hylor



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Guardian Angels, M/M, Wingfic, fall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saral_Hylor/pseuds/Saral_Hylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes when a child is born they get assigned a guardian angel, who will watch over them their whole life. Only that person, or someone with true vision, can see that guardian angel. </p><p>But, only people who are going to have particularly hard lives get assigned a guardian angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that completely floored me. I was discussing with my sister about how I was going to tackle all my WIPs, when this new idea just hit me, and pretty much started writing itself in my head. So I started to write it down. 
> 
> This is the first part. I'm posting it as a teaser to see what people think.

When Mariana Alvarez gave birth to baby Carlos, the first son after four daughters, she knew that there was something special about him. He had intense eyes, always watching everything, and was very quiet, hardly ever crying, not even when four year old Solana accidently dropped him.

Her _abuela_ told Mariana that Carlos had old eyes, that he’d see things that others couldn’t, and see more in his life than was fair. It upset Mariana, she wanted nothing more than to protect her children and give them the best life possible, but there was nothing she could do. If it was to be his fate, then Carlos would have to endure it. There was nothing she could do except love him and make sure he knew that she always would.

When he was five it became apparent that it wasn’t only his family that was watching over Carlos. He began to talk about _el payaso_ who followed him around. As any mother would, at first Mariana feared that there was someone out there trying to endanger her son, but when she talked about it with her _abuela_ the older woman simply smiled and patted her on the arm reassuringly.

“Do no fear, _mi hija_. Carlito’s _payaso_ has wings and will watch over him.”

She did not reveal how she knew that, and Mariana knew better than to ask, her _abuela_ was a very wise woman. The knowledge that there was an angel watching over her son did not ease her heart at all.

Only those who were going to have particularly hard lives were watched over by angels.


	2. Chapter 2

For as long as Carlos could remember he had been able to see _el payaso_ ; the tall man with blond hair, round glasses and a smile that made him want to smile back. He didn’t think anything of it at first, the silly man with wings had always been there; he had vague memories of waking from nightmares and not needing to cry out for his parents because _el payaso_ was already there, leaning over the side of his crib, fingers drawing images in the air. The drawings would always come to life, colours and shapes dancing above him until the nightmares were forgotten.

As he got older, it became apparent that he was the only one who could see _el payaso_. His sisters thought he was making it up, though when he was six, his oldest sister Maria, who was twelve at the time, snuck into his room one night and lay in his bed with him, trying hard to see his imaginary friend. She wasn’t able to, but she listened to him talk to _el payaso,_ and laugh at the silly things the man did. She did not call him a liar.

His mama and papa could not see him either. His mama would smile at him whenever he talked about the silly man, but her eyes were always sad, like she was only pretending to be happy.

It was his _bisabuela_ that told him that _el payaso_ was his friend and his alone, that no one else would be able to see him, and very few would believe him that the man was there. She told him, made him promise, that despite that, he was never to ignore _el payaso_ , or try to send him away. Carlos promised, because he liked the silly man and had no intention of getting rid of his friend.


	3. Chapter 3

Carlos never ignored the winged man, though when he entered school he realised that it was not a good idea to talk to him in front of other people. Since he couldn’t always reply to _el payaso_ verbally, he started using facial expressions and the slightest gestures, a shrug of his shoulders, tilt of his head. The angel quickly picked up on the silent communication, and adapted to that; Carlos sometimes had the unnerving feeling that he could actually read his mind.

The teachers and other students in his classes thought that he was too quiet and a little aloof, not that Carlos minded that assumption, but it wasn’t overly true. It was, however, hard to concentrate on what other people were saying when there was an angel yabbering on in his ear all the time.

At eight, after going to church in the morning with his parents, Carlos reflected back on what the priest had talked about. Sitting through the service was always a test of his self-control, something that even at eight, he prided himself in. It was very hard to ignore _el payaso_ when all he’d do was fidget and wriggle in his seat; angels apparently didn’t do well in church. Carlos knew it was a good thing that no one else could see him, otherwise they’d be kicked out for interrupting the sermon.

Walking back from church, hanging a little way behind his sisters, Carlos glanced over at the figure walking beside him. It seemed odd, that despite the two magnificent wings growing from his back, the silly man did a lot of walking. Carlos knew he could fly, and hover, and just glide through the air if he really wanted to, he’d seen him do all of those things.

“The Bible gives all the angels names.” Carlos started, keeping his voice low. “Do you have a name?”

The angel laughed, “Of course I have a name, everyone has a name. But you always seemed quite content calling me a clown that I figured it didn’t really matter. Name’s Jake.”

The boy stopped mid step, giving him an incredulous look. “Jake? Angels can’t be called Jake.”

Jake turned around, but continued walking backwards, wings shifting slightly as if it was an aborted attempt to flap. Sticking his tongue out in an overly childish gesture he waggled his eyebrows. “Well, this one can and will be named Jake. Besides, Gabe and Mick were already taken.”

Following along again, Carlos, frowning slightly at the tee shirt, shorts and sneakers the angel was wearing. “You don’t dress like an angel either. Not like the pictures.”

“Pfft, they’re all old fashioned anyway, no one has bothered to update those pictures in years.” Jake retorted, glancing down at his clothes. “And I’ll have you know, Iron Man is awesome. You humans come up with the cleverest stories. If you’d just believe me and read comic books you’d understand.”

Carlos rolled his eyes, shook his head slowly, and quickened his pace to catch up with his sisters, who had stopped at the corner to wait for him.

“When did you become such a nonbeliever anyway? Don’t think I like you growing up, not if you’re going to become all cynical. Where is that blind faith in my awesomeness that you had when you were five?” The winged man huffed, his wings flexing forward in a sign of frustration.

The boy just smiled and shrugged, choosing not to answer the questions.


	4. Chapter 4

That winter both Carlos and his sister Anarosa both got sick and ended up in hospital.  The doctor wasn’t sure what it was and the two children were kept in isolation.

Mariana had screamed at the nurses when they wouldn’t let be with her children, until her husband, Emilio, had wrapped his arms around her and held her, sobbing, to his chest. They watched their babies through the glass window that looked in on the room; nurses covered up and anonymous flitted in and out of the room as they cared for the youngest two children.

Mariana talked to Carlos and Anarosa through the intercom in the wall, but the electronically distorted voice did little to calm down her daughter’s tired crying, and she knew that the muffled words crossing her son’s lips, too quiet to hear, were not for her; his gaze was fixed not on the window but upon a figure that she could not see. She asked her _abuela_ if _el payaso_ was still there watching over Carlos. The old woman held her hand and promised that the angel was still there. She did not have the heart to tell her granddaughter that there was no one watching over Anarosa.

Emilio watched as his children fought to get better, his son growing a little bit stronger each day, his youngest daughter failing that bit more. After a week, Anarosa was hanging by a thread; Carlos was alert, solemn but awake, almost fully recovered. Mariana whispered of angels and Emilio held his other three daughters close and prayed that someone would save his Anarosa. 

 

Carlos could see his family through the window, his mama, papa, Maria, Solana and Nieve and his _bisabuela_ ; they had hardly moved from outside that window the whole time he and Anarosa had been locked inside that room. They were sleeping. Carlos knew that it was dark outside, but inside the hospital there are too many lights for him to sleep. Anarosa didn’t do anything but sleep. He missed her crying; at least then he knew she was still there. He had to listen really hard to hear her breathing. There was a steady beep that came from the machine by her bed, it was the same as the one by his bed, but they were out of sync. They should match up, Carlos thought they should, but for every two beeps from his machine there was only one from hers.

Jake was there. He hadn’t left. He’d made the pictures in the air, like he’d did to chase the nightmares away, when the pain was at its worst and Carlos felt hot and cold all at once. He was there every time Carlos opened his eyes, smiling in that same sad way his mama did sometimes; it was all teeth and not reflected in his eyes. At first he was worried that the angel knew he was going to die, but was trying to keep it a secret. But as the week went on, he knew that the real secret was that he was going to live and Anarosa wasn’t.

He turned his face away from the window, back to the angel leaning against the wall, wings pulled forward as though he wanted to wear them like the shawls his _bisabuela_ wore. Jake smiled at him, but it still didn’t reach his eyes; he looked worried, and tired. Carlos was pretty sure angels weren’t supposed to look tired.

“Hey there little man,” Jake’s smile stretched into a grin, but it still looked like he was trying too hard. “How are you feeling?”

“You made me better.” His throat hurt, but Carlos forced the words out. He didn’t need to ask it as a question, he just knew.

_El payaso_ nodded, moving over to crouch down by the bed, reaching out to brush damp hair away from the boy’s forehead. “That’s my job, buddy, s’posed to look after you. Plus, you’re my friend, friends look out for each other.”

Carlos looked across the room to his sister’s bed. She looked tiny, wrapped up in those white sheets. She shouldn’t have looked so small, she was taller than both him and Nieve, who was older than her by a year. “Jake? Make Ana better too.”

The angel was silent for a long time, he was almost never quiet. After a while, Carlos wasn’t sure how long, Jake stood back up, bending down and pressed a kiss to his forehead, just like his papa did.

“Sure thing, buddy. Now get some rest. She’ll be better when you wake up.”

Carlos wanted to watch, to make sure that Anarosa was going to be okay, but he was tired and it was impossible to keep his eyes open.

 

Jake knew he wasn’t supposed to, but that didn’t stop him from crossing the room and gathering the small girl up in his arms, cradling her to his chest. If anyone looked in, they would not see the change, to the mortal eye, Anarosa would still be tucked into the hospital bed.

There were rules about interfering; he wasn’t supposed to impact upon anyone’s life except the person he was assigned to watch over. He could have convinced himself that what he was doing was for Carlos’ benefit, it was in a way, but he knew that he was breaking the rules. No matter how he skewed the data, how he wrote the equation, tampered with the code, the result was still the same.

He could feel the weak heartbeat, the shallow breathing, of the little girl in his arms. She was only nine, and that was too short a life to ever be considered fair. He hummed the tune of the lullaby their mother used to sing to them without even noticing, focusing his energy on making the heartbeat strong, pushing life back into the small body, willing the heart to beat stronger, the lungs to breathe deeper. He held her closer, chasing the sickness and pushing it out of her body. He knew he was being reckless, expending too much energy all at once, but there wasn’t time to take it slowly, carefully, like he had with Carlos.

When he felt the heartbeat flare up, pumping stronger, the first deep breath taken, he knew he’d done enough. Setting the little girl back down on her bed, Jake tried to focus on the increased heart rate on the monitor and not the ache in his body. He didn’t want to think about how heavy his wings felt, or the pain in his head.

The old woman was watching him, Jake didn’t know how much she had seen, he simply knew that she could see. True vision, they called it, though he didn’t know what had caused it in Carlos’ great grandmother. He made eye contact and she nodded her head slowly, a bow of recognition, of thanks. He could tell that she knew what he’d done, and what it had cost him.

 

When Mariana woke up the next morning, the stiffness from sleeping in a chair did not even register. Both Carlos and Anarosa were sitting up in their beds, skin still pale, but their eyes bright, and she knew in her heart that she had _el payaso_ to thank for bringing both her babies back to her.

 

_“You broke the rules, Jacob.”_

_“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d assigned someone to look after Ana too.”_

_“There aren’t enough of us.”_

_“So we just let them die? I wasn’t about to do that.”_

_“We could always transfer you over to look after the girl, if that is what you want.”_

_“No way, I’m not giving up Carlos. I can look after him and his family. You’re not taking that boy away from me.”_

_“Be careful, Jacob, you shouldn’t get so attached. It’s difficult when they can see you. Don’t use up all your energy, you know what will happen if you do.”_

_“Yeah, I know. But he needs me. I have to make sure he’s okay.  I’ll be careful though, boss, don’t worry about me.”_

_“You’re still new to this, Jacob, don’t throw away your wings because of your first case.”_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait. 
> 
> There is more. 
> 
> It's just progressing very slowly.

As Carlos got older and started high school there were several things that he noticed about his angel. Firstly, Jake didn't change at all; his appearance stayed very much the same, though he cycled through various different super hero shirts, never seeming to pick a favourite for very long. The second thing he noticed was that, even at thirteen, and despite the fact that angels had a lot of responsibility, he was pretty sure that he acted more mature than Jake ever would.

Not that he minded. The enthusiasm that _el payaso_ had for super heroes, comic books and anything technological was more endearing than it was embarrassing. Though, that could have been simply because no one else could hear or see him.

When he started his second year of high school, his papa bought an old computer home from his work place, and set it up in Carlos' room so he could use it for his school work, rather than having to fight with the girls to use the one in their room. He didn't really like the computer, it intimidated him more than anything, and he certainly didn't pay a lot of attention in his computing classes at school.

He didn't have the heart to tell his papa that Jake liked the computer far better than he did, even pulling it apart one night to see how it worked.

And Carlos was certainly not jealous of how much attention the computer got.

**Author's Note:**

>  _abuela_ \- grandmother  
>  _el payaso_ \- the clown


End file.
